Remembering D-Day and the difficulty of being a German

[sundancer 42979xp 4]

So this is a rather hot topic in some German hobby forum at the moment and I wanted to hear your thoughts on it. My general perception of D-Day in our hobby is as follows:

Every hobby page/site/forum/group that is not German: “Remember D-Day. Let’s play a game and remember the beginning of the end of Hitler Germany”

A handful of people in German groups/sites/forums: “That doesn’t belong here! Keep it out of the hobby! Go somewhere else!”

I don’t get it. We (the Germans) should be the last of all people to stop remembering. I do get if someone doesn’t want to play WW II wargaming because it has brought much pain and suffering to others or even the own family. No problem there. But telling other people that remembering those horrible days within the hobby is wrong is just…. so very wrong. At least in my book. Sure, it may feel weird playing Waffen SS on a day like this but it should feel weird *every* time you do. Those where the baddies. The real bad baddies. Telling other people to “keep it out of the hobby” is the same as to say “don’t make a game out of WW II”.

At most I’m baffled on how fast these discussion heat up. It’s like holding a candle to an open fuel can. As far as I can tell English and American gamers have the least problem with WW II games and D-Day remembrance. But what about all other nationalities? Please share your thoughts.

[storminwolfMember 3023xp 0]

That’s such a German discussion.

There was also an official game to commemorate d-day: Memoire 44 or in English Memoir ‘44.

i think anything that keeps the memory alive and fresh is good, germans like to shun everything based on how bad it was and not being comfortable talking about it or doing anything. I actually find it repulsive how little is done I. Germany to remember d-day. France still has to deal with the resting places, bunkers, ammunition, mines and so on on it’s beaches.

We still have a few veterans left but not for long and  I find it shamefully little is done in Germany to keep the memories alive.

[sundancer 42979xp 1]

Oh the memories are kept alive but they are not celebrated. Mostly (I think) because there is a great fear the wrong type of people (aka Neo Nazis) could use the remembrance to celebrate the wrong “heroes”. It’s a rather sharp dual edged sword. (Similar to talking about cruel colonization methods of other countries or civil wars).

It’s not easy being politically correct if everything you do can be interpreted as wrong.

[storminwolfMember 3023xp 0]

Well, a lot must have changed if d-day is remembered in Germany nowadays since I left 7 years ago, and I don’t think I have seen any other country being ashamed or shunning discussions about their imperialistic colonial past. On the contrary, it is still celebrated and done. Granted in former colonies some repair processes towards indigen cultures have started but it is very very little.

[sundancer 42979xp 0]

Angela Merkel was invited to the UK for it and it’s in the news. Still, there are no parades or such things. But it’s talked about more publicly. Though, as I wrote in the first post, some people still will blow a fuse if triggered in there hobby space.

[chesh 573xp 0]

Playing Waffen SS holds no issues with me if playing myself or someone else playing them.  It is a representation of the past not a reality of now.  Yes, I understand atrocities were committed by members of the said military unit, but isn’t it a case that atrocities have been committed by many ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ over the course of history.

Does anyone question anyone playing those armies?

[sundancer 42979xp 1]

That’s the part that boggles my mind the most: every other day it’s totally fine to talk about your Flames Of War gaming experience no matter what faction you play but as soon as you start talking about “remembering events” and to think about it a part of the German gaming community just goes ballistic.

To answer the second part: nobody questions playing Waffen SS or Volkssturm but since the law on certain depictions is really strict (no swastikas anywhere except in history books) you’re walking a fine line there. But that’s a whole other discussion.

[suetoniuspaullinusMember 12198xp 0]

Seems silly not to remember D-day. Germany might have ended being totally under Soviet control without it.

The hobby is controversial enough but if you decided to take it up it shouldn’t make any difference what scenario you can play.

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 0]

In my D-Day game post on here I pay my respects to the German forces defending the beaches as well as the French people who were going to finally get liberated.

But, as a proud Englishman, I find it very hard to play as the SS, to a point I will try to avoid gaming those actions if possible. But what gets forgotten and misquoted is that not every German at the time was a Nazi, or part of that party.

What we are remembering today is to make sure that a World War never happens again, after all there has been two and that should be a lesson to all of us. I do hope that in time things change for you @sundancer

 

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 1]

If i understand correctly @sundancer‘s peception of the contrast of non-German forum discussions about playing D-Day games to commerate D-Day on the 75th anniversary of D-Day versus German forum discussions about the same, they being ‘remember and celebrate’ versus ‘inappropriate and anathema’ respectively, they seem to me, in what i admit is my, still likely significant ignorance on such matters, part of general trend in attitude to WW2 in both spheres. I would like to suggest listening to this discussion that i came across today by way of an antidote to both responses: https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgx7Ljqge6?play=true .

[oriskany 60771xp 5]

Great thread, @sundancer – and definitely a point that needs to be remembered.

Here’s another.  A huge proportion of the “German” troops who actually fought (at least on this very first day) were not German at all, but conscripts from countries like modern day Ukraine and Belarus.  These are the “East” or “Ost” Battalions you see filling out Infantry Divisions like 709th, 711th, and 716th.

German troops of course fought with formations like the 352nd and the 21st Panzer, and naturally ALL the divisions that engaged in the later battles through the Normandy back country.  Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, Luftwaffe (both in the air and on the ground, in LW Flak Battalions, LW field divisions, etc), even Kriegsmarine in places like Cherbourg and the Channel Ports later on.

And the carnage suffered by the German soldier at the “end game” battles like Operation Cobra and Falaise is pretty horrific.

I won’t get into the whole “playing Waffen SS” angle, others are covering it.  But during my travels in Normandy, plenty of “German sites” were also represented.

The German cemetery at Cambre.

 

One of the graves there.  It was actually kind of sad to see how many were simply “Ein Deutscher Soldat” or “Zwei Deutscher Soldat” (two men to a gravestone) – far too many of these men are unidentified.

Heading much further inland, we came to the museum and overlook at Falaise / Argentan, where the Normandy Campaign would eventually end in August.  We were very lucky, I was surprised to find that one of the world’s last twelve surviving operational PzKpfw V “Panther” tanks was there “on tour.”  Holy hell, was she a beautiful machine, and perfectly maintained and restored as well.   1:1 scale, baby!

[skiptotheend 4525xp 3]

I’ll add my two penniths worth.

my parents at this moment live in jersey – the only part of the british isles to be invaded. And they have a similar mentality around the war, they dislike churchill because he left them to starve and also can’t quite give the same distance as most of britain of US and THEM, as they saw the ‘enemy’ up close. Infact part of one of their museum pieces is an interactive german soldier and it asks “What would you do” the german soldier is trying to speak broken english and being pleasant offering food etc. They find ww2 weird because it wasn’t the faceless enemy they saw the people as well, which makes looking at any bad time harder.

They celebrate the day they were liberated however there’s a small amount of annoyance there as during D-Day they were bypassed and the germans ‘starved’ out – meaning they weren’t liberated for quite some time (MAY 1945)..

further more their museums (which is a massive underground field hospital and bunkers around the island) are FULL of stories of locals AND germans, because ultimately there is a human side they have to tell. Having lived in close proximity to the ‘enemy’ (Even though many of the germans stationed there came back because of how well they reminisced about the island (to put in perspective you could be stationed there or the eastern front)

I think it is nice that the museums walk a very good line about the atrocities (many spanish and russian slaves were used there) mixed with the human side (stories of the germans in the bunkers they lived in / stories of locals in talking to or resisting the germans), even some from the channel islands were sent to concentration camps and never came back.

There is a fine line to walk to discuss these issues but not annoy anyone, but in truth dialogue has to be the ultimate winner here no matter if people have their toes trodden on.

For example:
My nan (oma) grew up during the war – was part of child groups and sports teams which are probably deemed ‘evil’ now but were an equivalent of scouts and such groups (with a propaganda element). And talked about stories which happened during her time there – even a story where during kristallnacht where these children groups were used to rouse up some of the rioting (brain washing children anyone?), she took some cloth (as a child going along with the crowd) and took it to her mother, horrified her mother made her take it back. Now my family didn’t know about this story because nobody wanted to talk about it.

She didn’t seem too fussed discussing such details with me however i think there was a sitgma with my aunts, as when she moved to england (during the cold war – lots of stories of escape in her past too eg: shot at by russian soldiers escaping across train tracks) she stopped talking in german as people gave her angry looks and my aunts STILL hate discussing the war (As I think in their mind it degrades their ‘family’ image) – which i think maybe some germans also feel

However she told me because i had knowledge of the war and i think this is a small concise story which shows that nothing in history is ever black or white and infact both sides had evil (allied warcrimes anyone?) and humanity.

Many stories in the german bunkers show german soldiers – many 20-ish years old, feeling sorry for the slaves on the island and also telling of their lives. Which i think really brings home living in a totalitarian state: 1) its a brave person to get in its way – much braver than we think and 100x braver to act upon it 2) if the train has left the station its very hard to stop it to get off.

However in all of this dialogue is key, no matter how horrible it may seem, to look and understand what happened is better than turning a blind eye – for all parties.

[sundancer 42979xp 0]

great writing @skiptotheend thanks for sharing

[wittmann007Participant 588xp 5]

From what I’ve seen, a lot of German Veterans would love to talk about their Wartime experience, and indeed feel angry whenever people tell them to keep quiet. However, there are those that feel ashamed, which always make me sad.

There also exists an atmosphere of mutual respect among Soldiers of that era. A prime example was Maleme Cemetery a few years ago.

After the German Ambassador and dignitaries had finished there, they played the Fallschirmjäger’s famous “Rot Scheint die Sonne” march. The Ambassador told the band to stop just before they played the third verse, but when the band stopped, their came a collective voice from the back of the visitors.

It was the voice of a group of British veterans who had come to pay their respects, and before anyone knew what was going on, both the British and German veterans broke into song and finished it. Friend of mine was there, and he said he’d never heard a group (of what essentially were pensioners!) belt out something like that with such pride and volume.

After they finished the Ambassador was leaving, but before he did, he wanted to get the ol’ “Oh look at me doing the good job shaking hands with the people”/PR job etc. He shook one of the Fallschirmjäger’s hand but as he tried to let go, the veteran tightened his grip and said:

“The last time a politician ordered us to do something, our friends went Home in boxes.”

Nuff said.

Then the Vets went down the Local and got drunk together.

It’s also worth reminding yourself sometimes that while Europe was occupied, (enslaved some might say) the German people were held under the same Gun too. Information was Power to the Nazis, and they scrutinised their own people in much the same manner as they did the rest of the Nation’s under their influence.

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

Good to hear from you @wittmann007 – and I wonder what buys like @bothi , @andre77 , and @setesch would have to say on this.  I miss you guys!  😀

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